


Where the Map Led

by Uozumi



Category: Doctor Who, The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: Crossover, F/M, I Blame Tumblr, M/M, Post-Episode: s07e05 The Angels Take Manhattan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-18
Updated: 2014-08-18
Packaged: 2018-02-13 18:04:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2160000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Uozumi/pseuds/Uozumi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three years after Amy and Rory disappeared in “The Angels Take Manhattan,” a map sent in a TARDIS-blue envelope brings Malcolm and Jamie to the grave of Jamie’s niece and her husband.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where the Map Led

**Author's Note:**

> **Title** _Where the Map Led_  
>  **Author** Uozumi  
>  **Fandom** _Doctor Who_ / _The Thick of It_  
>  **Character(s)/Pairing(s)**   
> **Genre** Alternate Universe/Crossover/Death/Science Fiction  
>  **Rating** PG (R for language)  
>  **Word Count** 921  
>  **Disclaimer** Doctor Who c. BBC, The Thick of It c. Iannucci, BBC  
>  **Summary** Three years after Amy and Rory disappeared in “The Angels Take Manhattan,” a map sent in a TARDIS-blue envelope brings Malcolm and Jamie to the grave of Jamie’s niece and her husband.   
> **Warning(s)** mention of a suicide attempt, major character deaths pre-fic, potential spoilers for _Doctor Who_ through the 2013 Christmas Special, potential spoilers for all series and specials of _The Thick of It_  
>  **Notes** The words flowed at me a few nights ago and I only just cleaned it up. I’ve been wanting to write some kind of niece story for _The Thick of It_ for months now. There’s a 15,000~ with a nameless niece WIP sitting in my documents folder, but I just haven’t been able to end it. After a while, I started to think about what if Amy was either Jamie or Malcolm’s niece and I stopped and started and squirreled around until this finally happened. This fic assumes that when Rory said he was thirty-two, it was the year he should be thirty-two.

**_Where the Map Led_ **

Malcolm’s jaw tensed. Jamie swears dissolved into a coughing fit. Jamie swallowed the phlegm in his throat, his nose wrinkling. Malcolm put a hand on his back. “It doesn’t make any fucking sense,” Malcolm murmured. His hair was white and his wrinkles set. It was ten years since he was released from prison and sixteen years since the inquiry.

Jamie recovered and stared at the gravestone. He reached into his pocket and retrieved a letter in an envelope the colour of the police boxes from their youth. “It’s the site.” There was a map drawn with a very brief note. It arrived in the post six months ago along with tickets for airplanes and reservations for hotels. 

“Nothing good comes of police boxes,” Malcolm said. He moved to the side of the plot, touched one of the names on the headstone, and slid his fingers along the age. “It wasn’t a fucking magic trick. That cunt kidnapped them, did something to them.” 

“He’s fucking imaginary!” Jamie growled. He ripped up the map in frustration then and it flew away in the wind. “I was at the wedding. It was a trick. This is another fucking joke by some fucking cunt.” He ran a hand through his hair to get it out of his eyes. “How do we know the bodies in there are eighty-two and eighty-seven? How do we know that they aren’t thirty-three?”

“Are we going to dig them up?” Malcolm growled back. “Are we going to come here in the middle of the night in the middle of winter to dig up our niece and her dead husband to do an anatomy check neither of us are fucking qualified to make?”

“Are we just going to accept that they somehow lived into their fucking eighties when they disappeared in their thirties?” Jamie asked. “I’m sixty-one. How is my niece eighty-fucking-seven? She’s supposed to be thirty-six. Her mam’s not even seventy.” 

Malcolm rubbed his face. He grew quiet. His mind raced. “We could have called the police. You had to tear up the map.” 

Jamie looked at the scraps of paper that had not blown away yet. He swore indiscriminately and picked up what pieces he could, but there were too few. He sighed and looked at Malcolm.

Malcolm was on a mobile he bought at a shop to avoid roaming charges. He read the screen through his glasses carefully. The mobile slipped from his fingers and he caught it before it could land on the ground. He held the mobile out so Jamie could see the screen. 

Jamie took the mobile. “You know I can’t read shit at that distance,” he said. He pulled the mobile closer to his face and squinted. While Malcolm had long since given up and begun to wear glasses regularly, Jamie had yet to admit he might need at least reading glasses. Jamie’s breath caught. He looked at picture after picture, obituary after obituary. He stopped on a picture of a couple from the early 1940’s according to the caption. He knew the woman’s face. The man was at least ten years older than last Jamie saw him as though the two of them entered the past at different years. “That man wasn’t imaginary,” Jamie whispered. “That police box wasn’t a magic trick.”

“Amelia and Rory Williams,” Malcolm said quietly. “I never thought she’d call herself Amelia again after that incident.” 

Jamie tried not to remember. His niece’s parents went missing when the girl was barely in primary school. She would stay with his sister’s sister-in-law during term and with Jamie during summer holidays. When Amelia was fourteen, she tried to kill herself. She was on her fourth psychologist and bit any psychologist who dare tell her that her imaginary friend Raggedy Man was imaginary. After the fourth psychologist, however, she lost so much faith in Raggedy Man that she spiralled downward rapidly without warning. After she got out of the hospital, she began to call herself Amy and tried to be more of an adult about things. It worked for a time, but when she was nineteen, she began to talk about Ragged Man again until it culminated in a strange man stepping out of a police box that appeared without warning at the wedding reception. 

Malcolm’s lips stretched into a thin line. He had been a large part of Amy’s life as well. He and Jamie had always been good friends since just before she was born. It was not until Malcolm came back from prison that he and Jamie became something more than just good friends. By then, Amy had been married to Rory for five years. Malcolm could still remember her gently teasing him about waiting as though he might understand some grand inside joke. Malcolm moved over to Jamie. He stood close, able to feel how much warmer Jamie was than he was. 

“I can’t tell Tabetha,” Jamie said. “I don’t know how to explain this.” His sister still lived with her husband in Leadworth. They were still waiting for Amy to contact them or return to England. His fingers twitched. He wanted a pack or three of fags. He had not smoked in ten years but the urge swarmed through his body. 

Malcolm grasped Jamie’s hands to stop his fingers from twitching. He felt Jamie’s hand still and then Jamie’s fingers wrapped around Malcolm’s fingers and Jamie’s grip became very, very tight. Malcolm’s grip tightened in turn. Snow began to fall and they remained until the cemetery closed.

**The End**


End file.
